Tag: neuroscience

Blog Posts (99)

December 5, 2016

Throughout its tenure, the Bioethics Commission has maintained an active digital presence to connect with a global audience. A major component of this has been through its blog. This final blog post reflects on the role the blog has played in disseminating the Bioethics Commission’s work.

November 21, 2016

The tenth and final episode of the Bioethics Commission’s podcast series, Ethically Sound, is now available. Today’s episode, “Charting a Path Forward,” focuses on the Bioethics Commission’s two most recent public meetings, during which the Bioethics Commission reflected on the impact of past, present, and future of national bioethics advisory bodies.

October 17, 2016

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues bioethics_twitter-v3-08(Bioethics Commission) has
released the sixth episode, "New Directions", in its new
podcast series Ethically Sound. This podcast series is dedicated to bringing the Bioethics Commission’s body of work to a broad audience. The Bioethics Commission, established in 2009 by President Bara
ck Obama, has produced 10 reports, each of which focuses on key ethical considerations surrounding a particular topic. Today’s episode is based on the Bioethics Commission’s first report, New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies.

October 10, 2016

The fifth episode of the Bioethics Commission’s podcast series Ethically Sound, “Gray Matters,” is now available. The Bioethics Commission has released 10 reports on a variety of ethically challenging topics. Ethical issues in neuroscience were the focus of the reports Gray Matters: Integrative Approaches for Neuroscience, Ethics, and Society (Volume 1), and Gray Matters: Topics at the Intersection of Neuroscience, Ethics, and Society (Volume 2).

August 3, 2016

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) has released a new series of primers on spotting and responding to science hype in the media. The three primers cover hype related to topics in new technology, public health and neuroscience.

March 4, 2016

NIH vowed to move its research chimps from labs, but only 7 got safe haven in 2015 Nearly three years after the National Institutes of Health announced that hundreds of chimpanzees held for invasive medical experiments would be retired to a … Continue reading →

January 27, 2016

This is the first post in our “History of Bioethics” series in which we will examine some of the seminal events that shaped the landscape of bioethics and its practice in the world today. This first blog will focus on the creation of the national bioethics advisory bodies in the United States and their different […]

October 21, 2015

In last week’s continuation of our “Deliberation and Education” series, we discussed the role of deliberation and education in the recommendations issued by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) in its sixth report: Anticipate and Communicate. This week’s post will examine deliberation and education in the Bioethics Commission’s Gray Matters […]

October 21, 2015

In last week’s continuation of our “Deliberation and Education” series, we discussed the role of deliberation and education in the recommendations issued by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) in its sixth report: Anticipate and Communicate. This week’s post will examine deliberation and education in the Bioethics Commission’s Gray Matters […]

July 29, 2015

(This post also appears on PRIM&R’s Amp&rsand blog) Earlier this year, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) released the second part of its report on neuroscience and ethics—Gray Matters: Topics at the Intersection of Neuroscience, Ethics, and Society (Gray Matters, Vol. 2). The report examines in depth several controversial topics that bring […]

October 29, 2012 4:55 pm

Tibetan monk and molecular geneticist Matthieu Ricard is the happiest man in the world according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin. The 66-year-old’s brain produces a level of gamma waves – those linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory – never before reported in neuroscience.

September 13, 2012 1:31 pm

Steven Poole in the New Statesman has a fun and feisty attack–very appropriate in the memory of Thomas Szasz, one of the great warriors against the scientistic pretensions of our knowledge of the human mind–on pop neuroscience books, for grossly overstating the value of fMRI evidence, burying truistic speculation under the guise of cutting-edge science, and sheer hand-waving silliness, among other intellectual crimes.

July 5, 2012 1:10 pm

Researchers have been struggling to unfold ‘what’s under the hood’ through the lens of neuroscience and they have been finding all sorts of insights into human behavior. They have been looking at everything from how multitasking is harder for seniors to how people love talking about themselves. Neural basis of love and hatred, compassion and admiration have all been studied with fMRI, yielding colored blobs representing the corresponding love or hatred centers in our brains. But what does it all really mean?

May 17, 2012 9:54 am

Will “the self” survive because it can provide people with a greater sense of happiness? Or is it – perhaps along with the constructs “Free Will” and “Determinism” – doomed to the dustbin of history? Should cyborgs, avatars, and a rewired human brain be developed with a stronger or weaker sense of self? An interview with Dr. Garret Merriam, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Southern Indiana.

May 10, 2012 11:30 am

The new sciences in fact have a tendency to divide neatly into two parts. On the one hand there is an analysis of some feature of our mental or social life and an attempt to show its importance and the principles of its organisation. On the other hand, there is a set of brain scans. Every now and then there is a cry of “Eureka!” – for example, when Joshua Greene showed that dilemmas involving personal confrontation arouse different brain areas from those aroused by detached moral calculations. But since Greene gave no coherent description of the question, to which the datum was supposed to suggest an answer, the cry dwindled into silence.

April 11, 2012 1:13 pm

Center researchers are studying neural systems and their relationship to motor commands, a connection that potentially could benefit the aging, those suffering from neurological disorders, or who have lost limbs in battle or other trauma, or from diseases. . . They also are studying important related emotional, cultural, ethical and psychological issues associated with limb loss, and enlisting the input of experts, for example, Judy Illes, a neurology professor at the University of British Columbia, who specializes in neuroethics.